As a young girl, outside hitter Whitney Dosty attended all of the University of Arizona volleyball games and admired the players while she watched them at the McKale Center.

Her father, Robbie, was a star basketball player at the UA from 1978-1981 and her sister had transferred to Arizona State to play basketball, so it wasn't hard for Dosty to decide five years ago that she wanted to stay in Tucson, her hometown, and become a Wildcat.

"I love it just because this is what I did when I was a kid, I came to the games," Dosty said. "Being able to look up at some of the players when you're younger and see them play I think it is a big deal."

Dosty, who played club volleyball for Club Cactus, also credits Arizona's head coach Dave Rubio and the coaching staff for another reason why she chose the UA as the best fit for her over Texas, UCLA and USC, among other schools.

"She's worked awfully hard the last five years to get where she's at," Rubio said. "I think she still has a tremendous amount of growth left in front of her, but she's starting to play with a little bit more confidence. Some of her athleticism is starting to come out. She's one of the more gifted athletes I've been around. She's starting to come into her own."

Since making the decision to become a Wildcat, Dosty has become one of Arizona's most talented hitters, but it hasn't been such an easy path for Dosty since having a breakout freshman year.

After graduating from Salpointe Catholic High School in 2006, Dosty immediately made an impact for the Wildcats as a freshman playing alongside UA standout Dominique Lamb.

She had an impressive season, appearing in all 109 games and coming in second on the team with 39 kills, earning her a spot on the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team.

"I think Dominique was a really good influence on me my freshman year," Dosty said. "She was always encouraging if I needed something. I think she helped me advance in my athletic career here."

Just as Dosty was at a high point, returning for her sophomore season in 2007, she endured a combination of knee injuries causing her to take a medical redshirt and watch her team from the sidelines.

When Dosty was young, she had Osgood-Schlatter's disease, a growing pain in your knees, but the pain eventually kept getting worse. If that wasn't hard enough to cope with, a tendon chipped a bone off in her knee, which she had to have removed.

"She's one of the more gifted athletes I've been around." - Coach Dave Rubio

Despite these injuries, Dosty took the setback in a positive way that helped her mature, develop, and see the sport in a different way.

"Sitting out is really tough, but it also helps," Dosty said. "You get to see another perspective of the game. When you're not playing you learn a lot just by watching. It was a bad year because I couldn't play, but it was kind of better because I got to sit back and see everything that I've been told to do."

In 2008, when Dosty returned for her junior year in school as a redshirt sophomore on the volleyball team, she did just that. She improved as a volleyball player, teammate and carried out the actions on the court that she was coached to do.

Dosty played in 99 sets registering 281 kills while being a threat to her opponents at the net with 61 blocks.

"She's been able to cope with the injuries in a very positive way," Rubio said. "I think in general, in the long run, it benefited her to be out for that one year and we redshirted her. She's been able to handle it. Her knees have been sore all the time and dealing with that aspect of it, but she's a pretty tough kid so she's been able to handle the pain that goes associated with those injuries."

Last season, Dosty came out ready as a redshirt junior, but with a little bad luck early in the season, she found it hard to find a groove because of an injury, and was hampered by it all season.

After the first week of matches, Dosty broke her left pinkie finger which ended up causing her to sit out five matches in a cast.

"It was just aggravating I mean because of a finger you can't play," Dosty said. "I had to sit out for a couple weeks. I actually had to get surgery on it. That's how ridiculous it was."

Although Dosty was set back by another injury, she still continued to grow as a person and an athlete. She finished the season with an average of 3.02 kills-per-set, 0.56 blocks, along with 1.46 digs.

Dosty helped her team to advance to the NCAA tournament for the 22nd time in school history and first since she's been on the team.

"She's our go-to-player," said senior libero Danielle Holloway, who has played with Dosty for three years. "She leads by example. You give her the ball and she puts it away. I think that's really important in a tight situation. You can count on her. It's a good feeling. If we are stuck in a rotation for awhile I know that if I get the pass to Paige and she sets Whitney we are most likely to sideout right away."

This season as a redshirt senior, Dosty is back energized and ready for a successful final season as a Wildcat. Despite still having constant pain in her knees, she is firing away and is back to being the player at the net that opponents fear.

She has already earned honors this season; garnering Most Valuable Player honors for the Wildcat Classic earlier this month and she currently leads the team in kills.

"It's a struggle for her everyday just to fight through that (pain) but I definitely think that changes somebody and their perspective on the game and their perspective on everything," Holloway said.

"I always knew that Whitney's best volleyball would be after she graduated from college," Rubio said. "We were hoping we would get some of that before she left, so far we've been, in a sense, really thankful that some of her best roots have just come to fruition for us."

With Dosty, as healthy as she's ever been and already finished with her undergraduate studies, able to treat Wildcat fans sitting in those same seats where she once sat in as a little girl, the Arizona volleyball program has high aspirations.

"In the long run it was a setback, but I'm kind of glad because I got this extra year and I feel better about this year than I have any other," Dosty said. "Hopefully I can influence other young girls to play volleyball and follow their dreams in college. It's been so much fun."